Fundraising, says Geeta Gopalakris-hnan, is littered with miracles. “Every day of the last two years of my journey there has been a miracle,” says Ms Gopalakrishnan, director and fundraiser for the Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata.
Former creative director with Indian’s best ad agency, Trikaya Grey, who joined the Tata team to raise funds for their new cancer hospital in Kolkata two years ago, Ms Gopalakrishnan does not work for money. “I have always worked with special children and have not worked for money for years altogether. My salary with the Tatas is `101 every year,” she reveals.

Having decided last year to start fundraising in London, Ms Gopalakrishnan took just over six months to set up the London branch of the trust and organising a fundraiser, which included an auction and performance of a short play on Mahatma Gandhi, called OMG.
The 20-item auction included paintings by Jogen Chowdhury, Manu Parekh, Madhvi Parekh, Lalitha Lajmi and Paresh Maity, archival photographs of Mahatma Gandhi from the Deen Dayal Studio, charkha pendant by Tanishq, Air India first-class London-Mumbai return ticket, Jaguar track experience, a meal by Michelin chef Sriram Aylur, who runs Quilon in London, and luxurious stay at Taj properties in Udaipur, Hyderabad and London.
“In London, I had set myself the target of £100,000-£150,000 and we have got close to that. The auction we held itself raised £100,000,” she reveals.
Geeta, who has conceptualised and written many shows for special children, was inspired to research on Mahatma Gandhi after watching the play, Prophet and the Poet, written by Vijay Padki. “The play’s rights in the United Kingdom were sold and when I inquired in London I was quoted a figure of £17,000 for performing it here. That’s too much money, so I started reading up on Gandhi and his works by going and reading up in Mani Bhavan every day.”
“I found that he had written on many things which had a contemporary resonance. I found that he had written on Godhra. It was a complete ‘Oh My God’ kind of reaction when I found the piece on Godhra. So I got really interested and collected a lot of material. Then I thought if we could weave this cleverly together then we could have a facet of Gandhi which is not known well. I met Seema Anand, who is a storyteller, here. This needed stories, unusual stories that people haven’t heard. I met Dalip Tahil and he very happily agreed to play the part of Gandhi.”
Geeta, who played mother earth in the play, says the play was a collaborative effort between the three of them. “I conceptualised it and I collected all the research work. Seema helped with the stories and Dalip brought in all his theatre experience. By process and error, we decided on the format and directed it ourselves. Seema was stringing together the disparate elements, but we didn’t have a scriptwriter writing the play.”
The play will now be performed in Mumbai on March 27 and then in Kolkata as part of fundraisers. The indefatigable fundraiser is already planning another fundraiser in London. Full of innovative ideas for more fundraisers, she is even looking at a bi-annual fundraiser in London.
“I want to raise at least `1 crore for at least every show we do. In Kolkata, we have invited only 101 people. We will have a fashion show there and we sold the tickets for `1 lakh each and they sold out. We don’t have a ticket left,” she reveals.
Ms Gopalakrishnan’s fundraising journey with Tata Medical Centre started with a short-film starring Koel Dutta, a young girl from Malda who has been cured of cancer. “The first donation I got was `1 lakh, then I got `51 lakhs, I got `1 crore next and then Coal India committed `35 crores,” she reveals.
Not only interested in raising money, Ms Gopalakrishnan is also working to set up an ongoing exchange of knowledge between experts in Britain and the Kolkata centre and also facilitate research in the centre.
“I have Dr Peter Harper, the most well-known oncologist in London; Avijit Lahiri, well-known heart surgeon originally from Calcutta; Sir Richard Sykes, former rector of Imperial College London; Gandhian Lord Parekh; business woman Harriet Crawley in the London trust, and they all want to do something concrete,” she adds.